After Portland Riots, NY Times Suddenly Finds FBI Surveillance a Bad Thing Again

Portland, Oregon, has seen months of rioting and vandalism in its downtown. After discovering evidence that federal agents had tried to punish and track such activities, the New York Times came down hard — not on the rioters, but the FBI itself, on Thursday’s front page, co-written by Seattle bureau chief Mike Baker: “The F.B.I. Deployed Surveillance Teams Inside Portland Protests.”

Yes, FBI surveillance on political protestors is again a problem.

In the hours after President Biden’s inauguration this year, protesters marched once again through the streets of Portland, Ore., sending a message that putting a Democrat in the White House would not resolve their problems with a system of policing and corporate wealth that they saw as fundamentally unfair.

Journalists tried to downplay the orchestrated violence.

“No cops, no prisons, total abolition,” they chanted. Some of them wore the iconic uniform of masks and solid-black clothing. This can often signal a willingness to take on trouble, even if it is not immediately obvious. At the headquarters of the local Democratic Party, windows were smashed.

This event, like many others in the city that have consumed it since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, featured a number of antifascists as well as communists and racial Justice activists. However, there was another group of people that day: Plainclothes Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents.

F.B.I. set up extensive surveillance operations inside Portland’s protest movement, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and current and former federal officials, with agents standing shoulder to shoulder with activists, Local police will be able to arrest suspects in vandalism if they follow up and furtively videotaping inside one of the country’s most active domestic protest movements.

The TimesThey believe this to be a negative thing. Tucker Carlson (Fox News host) has been attacked by various media, including the Times For his bizarre theories regarding the Jan 6 riots. The Now TimesIs criticizing Federal Infiltration in a Violent Left-Wing Movement.

F.B.I.’s reach Some within the Justice Department and F.B.I. were concerned about the involvement of federal agents in Portland, and other places where they were deployed to street protests. It could be a threat to the First Amendment right of protest against the governmentTwo people familiar with the talks said that they were.

Years of siccing Big Tech, social media on conservatives groups for the sake of fighting Covid disinformation or anti-trans hate speech has paid off. Times cares about the First Amendment again, when it can be “weaponized” to protect the country’s far-left flank.

The paper had to admit FBI informants regularly infiltrate right-wing groups and admitted of the January 6 riot, “the F.B.I. did have an informant in the crowd that day.”

It sounded almost like a newspaper teaming with left-wing organizations to convince the government to end its politically unconvenient surveillance

After hearing about The however, the organizers of civil rights and protest groups were told that Times’s findings, said that surveillanceYou can find more information atgents recording and following protesters in the midst of a demonstration was a Domestic spying is a form.

They tried to distinguish between the good and the bad.

These [right-wing]Sometimes, investigations involved surveillance and confidential informants. F.B.I. does not have any evidence. In recent years, agents were seen blending into street protesters.

 Times lead story from July 2020 noted the violent chaos in Portland, only to fiercely protest federal intervention while suggesting “fascism” was in play: “To City’s Alarm, Federal Officers Police Portland — ‘It Feels Like Fascism’ — Accusations of Exceeding Their Authority and Violating Rights.”